A MAN has gone on trial accused of the brutal murder of an 86-year-old woman in Bradford 25 years ago.

Raymond Kay is alleged to have sexually assaulted and robbed Amy Shepherd during an attack in which he beat and strangled her before stabbing her in the throat.

Kay, 70, would have been 46 at the time of the murder, on Tuesday, August 2, 1994, prosecutor Richard Wright QC told the jury at Bradford Crown Court today.

He was then living at one of two addresses in Bradford, Blenheim Road in Manningham and Reevy Crescent in Buttershaw, Mr Wright said.

The jury heard that Miss Shepherd, who had never married, was living alone in warden-aided sheltered accommodation in Folly Hall Gardens, Wibsey, when she was murdered.

Mr Wright said she was a popular lady, fiercely independent and very security conscious.

Miss Shepherd’s body was discovered by the warden’s husband when he called round at her flat in the early evening to administer her eyedrops.

“Amy was lying in the lounge on her back in a pool of her own blood. The blood had come from terrible wounds to her neck that her killer had inflicted with a serrated kitchen type knife that lay on the carpet between her legs.

“The wounds had been delivered as a final act in the culmination of a brutal assault during which she had been beaten, strangled with a ligature and then had her throat cut,” Mr Wright said.

A distinctive ring was missing from Miss Shepherd’s hand along with her keys, cash, a watch and a second ring. “The clear inference is that her killer had targeted her as a suitable candidate for robbery,” the jury was told.

Mr Wright said that Kay, now of Baker Fold, Halifax, had delivered meals on wheels to Miss Shepherd under the terms of a community service order imposed by Bradford Magistrates for road traffic offences.

Records showed that he stopped complying with the order on June 5, 1994, two months before the murder.

Mr Wright alleged there was “compelling” scientific evidence linking Kay, who pleads not guilty to murder, to the killing.

“We say that because the DNA profile of this defendant was found in no less than four crucial areas, three on and in her body and another on a tea towel,” he stated.

Mr Wright said that Miss Shepherd was unable to cook and from time to time relied on the meals on wheels service.

“She could not have known that her use of that service, a service that she would obviously trust and allow into her home, would introduce her to her killer,” he told the jury.

The court heard that Miss Shepherd was attacked shortly after arriving home from a shopping trip.

Dr John Clarke, the Home Office Pathologist called to the scene, said she had broken ribs, likely he thought from the killer kneeling on her chest. The knife had been plunged into her throat to its full depth and then torn across the front of her throat causing massive damage to the internal and external structures of the neck.

Mr Wright said: “She had been attacked, she had been sexually assaulted – in all likelihood raped – and then strangled with a ligature before her killer had finally ended her suffering by ripping open her neck with the knife left lying between her legs.”

The jury heard that the killer used a rolled up tea towel as a ligature, leaving it on the settee and locking the door behind him.

Mr Wright said that new DNA techniques could now be applied to crime scenes from 25 years ago.

He alleged that forensic evidence from Miss Shepherd’s body and the tea towel provided compelling evidence that Kay was the killer.

The trial continues.